At the heart of the community, the Birmingham Mail is a daily newspaper which was founded in 1870 and is distributed in the United Kingdom's second largest city, Birmingham and its surrounding areas including the Black Country, Solihull, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. The Birmingham Mail is located and printed in Birmingham and its address is Birmingham Mail, 24 Weaman Street, Birmingham B4 6AY. The newspaper, which was re-branded from the Birmingham Evening Mail in October 2005, is one of the biggest selling local papers in the United Kingdom, and Birmingham's largest. The Birmingham Mail is published from Monday to Saturday. The Sunday Mercury is its sister paper which is published on Sundays. The Birmingham Mail also prints and circulates a Black Country Mail edition also.

The newspaper is currently owned by the Trinity Group who also owns the Daily Mirror and the Birmingham Post, the weekly business tabloid sold in the Birmingham area. The current Birmingham Mail editor is David Brookes, who is also Editor-in-Chief of the Sunday Mercury and Birmingham Post.

The Birmingham Mail was acquired by the Mirror Group in 1997 from Midland Independent Newspapers for £305 million, whose portfolio also included the Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd, the North Midlands titles previously owned by Newsquest and exhibitions and magazine company Inside Communications.  In September 1997 Trinity plc and Mirror Group plc merged under the heading of Trinity Mirror plc to become the biggest newspaper publisher in the UK.

There are a number of newspapers in circulation in and around the Birmingham Area, with the Birmingham Post being one of the main rivals of the Birmingham Mail. Birmingham's daily newspaper circulation, apart from the Birmingham Mail and Post, also includes the Birmingham Evening Mail, Express & Star and the Metro among others.

The paper normally hits the streets at 0600hrs and is on sale until the end of day. The advertising deadlines are up until 17:00 to meet the requirements of the next day's edition. Its circulation is via the normal newsagent collection route or by the newspaper boy, girl, man or women daily delivery system, in most cases we all have a choice.

The Birmingham Mail provides articles associated with the latest UK, West Midlands and World news, business reports, sport, travel, shopping, beauty, jobs & career opportunities, weather, local and parliamentary elections, cheap flights, classifieds, numerous local events, community matters, local restaurant reviews and company advertising amongst others.

In the world sport, the Birmingham Mail is favoured within its circulation area of four Birmingham Premiership football league teams in Aston Villa, West Bromwich Albion, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Stoke City, plus the recently relegated from the Premiership, Championship league side Birmingham City and Football League 1 side, Walsall. The Birmingham Mail is also blessed with the Warwickshire County Cricket club operating on its doorstep, which is also a venue for Test Matches and International one day games. The Birmingham Brummies speedway team who now perform in the Elite cream of the crop league are also in close proximity. In the world of Rugby Union they have local Championship team, Moseley and the recently relegated Birmingham and Solihull Bees. A little farther afield they also have Worcester Royals, who following a successful season have been promoted to ruby unions Premiership league. County Cricket is also available at New Road, Worcester. Birmingham and its surrounding areas are also home to numerous amateur sports clubs who will provide their own match day reports and local league tables, which all help in putting the interesting sports section together, all these sporting areas provides the Birmingham Mail with the ability to provide a Midlands in-depth sports coverage.

The Birmingham Mail sports editor must experience weekly problems, followed by headaches, on which sporting reports to include and those to leave out; what a problem to be blessed with? On the income side, however, the papers sporting section must surely be a major addition to its general circulation numbers, the subject matter of which generally favour Mondays for match reports and Fridays, for what might be the outcome of Saturday games. It would be interesting to determine if the Birmingham Mail circulation is affected with the annual ending of the football league season.  Perhaps Birmingham Mail staff could advise Activ Birmingham on this one by contacting us on www.activbirmingham.com or emailing us on info@activbirmingham.com

The Birmingham Mail approximate circulation figure between July-December 2007 was 67,321 and by August 2009 this figure had dropped to 56,495 for the six months ending July 2009, which was a disappointing drop of 14.6%  from the January-July figures of 2008. The Birmingham Mail, like many other regional and national papers has experienced this downturn following the increasing availability and use of internet news facilities.

In August 2010 the Birmingham Mail, which switched from same day to overnight printing at the start of 2010, saw its daily circulation fall even further by 9.1pc year-on-year to just over 51,000.

However, it appears the decline in daily Birmingham Mail sales appears to be slowing, as the same report in 2009 showed its circulation was down by 14% compared with the first half of 2008, a swing of 5%.

Parent company BPM Media, a division of Trinity Mirror which also owns the Coventry Telegraph and weeklies the Birmingham Post and Sunday Mercury, has put the improvement down to a higher story count, increased sale time and more outlets stocking the paper.

The Birmingham Mail editor David Brookes indicated that in addition to publishing overnight, there was also improved editorial quality and story count in the Birmingham Mail and new platforms have been introduced, one example being the popular weekly Crime Files supplement and that the initial objective was to bring the decline into single figures, which has been achieved. The aim now is to continue these improvements throughout the rest of the year and obviously, beyond.

BPM Media managing director John Griffith added: "Our decision to publish overnight has certainly improved our long term sales trend on the Birmingham Mail for the better and it has allowed the editorial team to use the additional deadline time to refine and improve each day's Mail."

We at Activ Birmingham wish the Birmingham Mail well for the future.